


Midnight Robbery

by Lindzzz



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Credence gets a way less sketchy wizard buddy, I wanted an excuse to write Newt being a weirdo, Less slow burn more makeouts in the future, M/M, Newt introduces himself by grabbing dudes in alleyways, Newt the walking hazard to the statute of secrecy, Niffler shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 05:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9643316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindzzz/pseuds/Lindzzz
Summary: Credence knows that strange things roam the nighttime streets of New York. But none of the warnings he grew up with quite prepared him for this level of strangeness.





	

There are strange things that wander the streets at night. Credence has heard all the stories, grew up with every warning hammered into his head. The night was when the devils came out and when the witches roamed. The people who stalked the dark streets would cut you as soon as look at you.

The warnings are entirely why Credence sneaks out when he can. 

It isn’t difficult, once everyone is asleep, and as long as he can keep track of time no one notices. It becomes addicting, this small act of rebellion, the grab at freedom. By day he keeps his head down and silently hands out pamphlets as he’s told. At night he creeps out, losing himself in the dark, wandering New York and listening to the warbling notes of jazz and screaming laughter of the parties that both entice and terrify him. The night is everything forbidden to him, everything he is told to fear. It’s inhibitions tossed away and rules turned into jokes with dangerous laughter.

He never takes part, never joins. The dens of sin and bright lights aren't for him. He only hovers at the edges, waiting to see which night will be the one that will end up with a knife stuck in him, just another victim of the dark. 

If he’s being honest with himself, Credence can admit that he almost looks forward to when he ends up on the wrong side of a mugging.

But this...this was not what he had in mind.

“Give it back.” He whispers, crouched down with a hand held imploringly to the strange creature looking at him a few feet away, clutching his only silver dollar in it’s paws. The city is dark and strange, but this is a level of strange that he had never thought to anticipate.

The creature- was it a rat?- sniffs at the coin, holding it up to the dim streetlight to blink up at it.

“I need that.” He tries to explain, heart starting to hammer against his tightening lungs. Ma’ takes account of money like that, and if he just lost it…

He takes a slow breath, fingertips shaking. “Come on…” He hisses, slowly creeping towards the thing. It freezes and looks up at him with intelligent dark eyes. After a moment of consideration, it shoves his coin into some sort of pouch and shuffles towards him on all fours, sniffing curiously.

“Come on…” Just a little closer, he just needs it to come close enough to grab so he can get his money back, be done with this and try not to worry so much about what this thing is.

The animal freezes, head darting around like it heard something, Credence goes just as still while the thing looks off into the night. There’s silence, or as much silence as New York has at night. Carts and motorcars rumble by, people shout and laugh, distant sirens scream, and over it all Credence’s heart thuds in his ears while the creature tilts its head. 

Then it leaps at him. Credence scrambles back with a shout, cold pavement hitting his rear as the thing jumps onto his chest and scrambles into his jacket, half diving into one of his pockets. “Get out of there!” 

The thing makes a snuffling sound, rummaging in his pockets under his coat before settling itself somewhere by his hip. Credence swallows hard, slowly getting up, the thing a warm lump against his side. He can feel it breathing shallow and rapid, huddled tight against him. Slowly, holding his own breath, he reaches into his jacket. It’s fur is sleek and smooth under his fingers, and it makes an almost grumbling sound at his touch. It also seems to have no intent of moving.

“I can’t take you home…” He says quietly, making no move to dislodge it, feeling its heart beat against his fingertips. “Ma wouldn’t allow it.”

It stays against his side, and after a few moments he puts his hands in his pockets and starts walking along the sidewalk again. Credence frowns at the sidewalk, head tight with pressure while he thinks. He can't just take it home, whatever it is. Once he brought a dog home and Ma’ had chucked it right back outside.

But he can't bring himself to pull the thing off him, and he keeps fighting the urge to reach into his coat to feel the fur again.

“I still need my money back.” He says after a few moments.

Paws scramble over his back as the thing moves around, and Credence feels it start rummaging in his waistcoat. A clinking sound tells him that the thing found the colorful bottlecaps he had picked up for Modesty. 

“You can’t keep those ei-”

A hand reaches around the corner, yanking him into the black of the alleyway. Credence’s breath stops in his throat, and he thinks, in a distant way, that it took long enough for this to happen. He’s shoved roughly against the wall, and he stays quiet, shutting his eyes and waiting.

“Alright you little bugger, leave him alone!”

Credence opens his eyes, and jumps near out of his skin when the man attacking him shoves his hands in his pockets.

“I don’t have any money…” He points out, and is ignored. The man mutters something about thieving bastards, and Credence decides not to point out that he isn’t the one thieving anything at the moment. His voice sounds odd, and it takes Credence a few moments to recognize a British accent. In the dim light coming from a nearby lamp he can see a fluff of auburn hair bent down somewhere by his waist and a blue coat. It looks like it’s in oddly decent shape for being on the back of an alleyway mugger.

The creature suddenly scrambles up his side, and Credence yelps when the man lunges, arms shoved around him and up under his jacket.

“Oh no you don’t!”

“Um.” Credence holds his arms up, shaking slightly and swallowing hard. The man shoots upright, holding the creature by its scruff. It chitters angrily, paws scrambling at a sleeve while the man grins and Credence tries to get a look at him in the dim streetlight, without obviously looking at him. 

He looks like he walked out of a storybook, hair in a wild disarray with wide eyes and a crooked grin. Now that he’s stepped back, Credence can see more of the blue coat and yellow waistcoat beneath it, and what looks like a banged up suitcase clutched in his other hand. Suddenly the man’s head jerks around to look at Credence, like he’s just remembered him, and Credence drops his eyes, hands shaking at his sides.

“He take anything?”

Credence glances up, jumping when he sees the man peering at him, face mostly hidden in the shadows of his hair. “What?”

“He always takes something, he get anything from you?” The man explains calmly, head jerking towards the animal clutched in his fist.

The man’s talking about the creature, who has given up struggling and is only looking almost imploringly at it’s captor. Credence raises his head fully, too dumbstruck to do anything else.

“It...he took a silver dollar and a couple bottlecaps.” 

The man huffs, lifting his head to glare sternly at the animal. “What have we talked about? If it’s not yours and I don’t tell you you can have it, you keep your sticky paws off! Come on, give it up.”

The creature squeals, and Credence jumps when the man flips the thing around and shakes it violently by its back feet.

“Don't…” Credence snaps his mouth shut before anything else can come out, but he has to grind his teeth to stop it. The man gives the creature another hard shake, and something shudders darkly in Credence when the thing squeals again.

Then there’s a tinkling sound, and the assault stops. The man grips the creature again, holding it against his chest as he scoops down to the ground.

“That look about right?” He asks, holding out several coins in his palm. It’s quite a bit more than what Credence lost, and he doesn't recognize all of the coins.

For a few moments, Credence is caught between two very powerful instincts. One doesn't want to be too much of a bother, despite the fact that he is the one with his back against an alley wall, and he doesn't want to tell the man that is far more than what was taken. The other part of him protests loudly against taking any more than what is his.

Eventually, the second issue wins out, and he mumbles some attempt at words as he picks out the bottlecaps and his silver dollar.

“That it?” The man squints at the other coins in his palm, then glares at the animal. “Where did all this come from then, hmm? Well here” -he drops the rest into Credence’s hand- “for your trouble, and I can't well hunt down all this little bastard’s victims, can I?”

That was a question, which Credence should answer, shouldn't he.

“...no?” He tries, but the man has already dropped to the ground and is shoving the animal into his suitcase. There’s a trick of the dim light, because it looks like his arm goes down up to the elbow in the case.

“Now behave! Don't make me come down there later!” 

“Um…”

The man shoots up like a spring, case shut and gripped tight in his hand. He stands there for a few moments, looking off down the alley as Credence leans against the wall and watches him.

“Well…thanks for the help! Sorry for the trouble.” The man finally says, and Credence is still wondering if he should say “you’re welcome” when the man turns in a flash of blue and runs down the street at a steady trot.

“...You’re welcome…” Credence mumbles to the air. It takes several moments before he can move again, still clutching the small pile of coins and bottlecaps in his fist. He loses track of the walk home, not even looking at the coins until he’s safely back in his room, squinting at them in the dim streetlight that comes in through a crack in the wall.

There’s the bottlecaps, his silver dollar, a couple pennies, not much. Except one of the pennies looks...odd.

Credence sets the coins down, frowning as he picks out a coppery coin that’s slightly larger than the plain pennies. The metal is different too, and he can make out a ram stamped onto the coin face along with strange lettering.

...What on earth is a knut?

**Author's Note:**

> To put it the most simply: this is an AU where for whatever reason, Grindlegraves doesn't start talking to Credence at all.


End file.
